The Faceless Man, the Nameless Girl
by The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Summary: In this modern setting, the influential business tycoon Eddard Stark has involved himself with powerful men, inevitably introducing his daughter, Arya, to an underworld of betrayal, murder, and Faceless Men. When Arya overhears a conversation not meant to be overheard, Jaqen H'ghar snatches the girl away as her rescuer. But does he have ulterior motives? Strap in for a bumpy ride.
1. Chapter One

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_**The Faceless Man, the Nameless Girl**_

**Chapter One: A Prelude**

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

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Jaqen H'ghar had always considered himself a rational man, one of reason, self-control, and intellect. _So why now_, he continued to ask himself, _is there a ten year-old tagging along behind me?_ He could not provide a reasonable answer. Perhaps the little Stark girl struck a soft side of his heart, a fatherly face of Jaqen which instinctively felt the urge to protect the girl. His duty. Or maybe her fiery attitude entertained him, and he admired her tenacity. Either way, there she was standing outside of his Cadillac, blinking into the sun as her round face stared up at his slight frown.

"Well, get in, little one," Jaqen said patiently. He opened the door to the back seat.

"You have a funny accent," was all the girl said before she climbed into his car.

He hid a small smile by shutting the door between them, afternoon light glinting across the dark exterior, then opened the driver's side and ducked into his seat. The car door slammed shut. He adjusted his mirror so the Stark girl remained in his eyesight in the backseat before turning the key in the ignition. His car thrummed to life.

"Aren't you gonna put your seatbelt on?" she asked suddenly.

The chuckle that passed his lips was followed by, "A man does not fear death. A simple strap of fabric cannot prevent him from what is to come, and a man realizes this."

"What about girls? Do I need to where a seatbelt?" His passenger fiddled with the restraint.

"Yes, little one. I suppose I must lead by example, however." And so he acquiesced while the buckle clicked into place. Jaqen pulled out of the little gas station parking lot smoothly and double-checked the side view mirrors for any unwanted vehicles possibly following his Cadillac.

The man heard the girl shift in the back (causing the leather seat to squeak unnecessarily under her wriggling). Finally she stated, "I'm kind of hungry. Where are we going now?"

"I'm taking you to safety until I can contact your mother and father." He drummed his fingers along the steering wheel. "You have found yourself in a highly dangerous situation."

"I like danger," she insisted.

"You should not," he said. "Your endeavors to seek out such danger led you to a warehouse filled with world-renowned criminals." He glanced into the rearview mirror and noted the blank look the girl returned to him. "Or perhaps I need to remind you, little one, of all the trouble you stumbled into?" He raised an eyebrow then returned his gaze to the road winding behind an apartment complex.

She sniffed and muttered, "I just wanted to see where my dad goes every night. I didn't know there were bad guys in there."

Jaqen pressed a button on the radio panel, filling the interior of the car with soft music. "And am I, what you so call, a 'bad guy?'" he asked her, not bothering to conceal his amusement behind another one of his masks.

"Well, no," the girl answered after a moment of thought. "You helped me sneak away from the bad men. And," she added, "you weren't even with them, right? You told me you're a-a-a…um…what did you say? You're a 'vigilist?'"

Out of the corner of his eye, Jaqen noted the way the girl cocked her head to the left, her eyebrows scrunched together. "The word you search for is 'vigilante.'"

"Oh. Yeah, that. So now that I know _what _you are, tell me _who_ you are."

"Names hold power, little one," he darkly said, "but I suppose you have learned that after your run-in with Mr. Bolton.

"I am Jaqen. Your name is Arya, if I remember correctly, no?"

She nodded vigorously. "Yup." A pause. "Wait, how'd you know that? D'you know my parents?"

Jaqen once again glanced up to the rear-view mirror and said, "A man knows many things. Including your father"—a corner of his full lips slightly curved upwards—"though he is not acquainted with me. Your father is well known, the ever honorable Mr. Stark."

"So why was he in that warehouse with all those bad men?" Arya could not bring herself to understanding. Her father was _good_.

"Eddard Stark has powerful friends," was all the answer she received.

After that, the two of them retreated to the recesses of their minds—Jaqen fine-tuning his plans, and Arya recalling the previous night's adventures. The car ride grew silent, save for the low humming of the engines and quiet music filtering through the speakers. Once she had enough of remembering, Arya entertained herself by causing the leather seat to squeak again. Sometimes she would sit upright all of a sudden to stare out the window at the large buildings zipping away behind them. Or, when they reached the highway, Arya would try to count the lines of passing cars.

She had never felt such extremities of boredom in all ten years of her life. Jon, Robb, and even Sansa always managed to keep her busy, because, at the very least, Arya could bother her older sister as a source of entertainment. She could not bother Jaqen. The consequences would be most severe, she figured. The girl just wished he would talk more.

Eventually, as the shadows of cars along the highway stretched longer, Arya piped up, "I'm hungry."

The grumbling of her stomach had not fallen upon deaf ears, and so Jaqen had already turned onto a dining exit when his little passenger had stated her need.

"A man obeys," he said.

Preoccupied with the task of finding a restaurant suitable for a famished pre-teen, Jaqen H'ghar failed to notice the BMW on their trail.

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** I obviously am not George R.R. Martin (you silly goose). Therefore, I own no rights to the recognizable characters throughout this story nor am I making a profit from them (don't make me laugh). **

** As will be revealed throughout the course of the story, Eddard Stark has involved himself with some not-so-upstanding men, inevitably introducing his youngest daughter, Arya, to an underworld of conflict, weapons, betrayal, immorality, murder, and, of course, Faceless Men. **

** Also, I find it incredibly humorous to imagine the skilled assassin Jaqen H'ghar ordering a kid's meal at a McDonald's drive-thru. Haha I hope you enjoy ****_Faceless_****! **

-The Sorcerer's Apprentice


	2. Chapter Two

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**Chapter Two: The Sweet Scent of Death... and Hamburgers**

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"A cheeseburger, plain. Oh, and with a side of fries."

"The girl would like a cheeseburger combo with no extra toppings."

Arya leaned forward to the driver's seat and poked Jaqen on the shoulder. "Can I have a soda, too?"

"Would that be wise?" he asked his little passenger, turning his head to face her eager stare.

"Dad always lets me get a cherry Coke on the weekends," she assured him with a really-not-all-that-assuring grin.

Jaqen leaned out of his car window and said into the drive-thru speaker, "Change this to a combo meal with a small cherry Coke." He shook his head at himself. Ten years ago when he joined the Faceless Men, he never would have guessed that one day he'd be ordering fast food for a child.

"So," Arya started, scooting into the backseat as Jaqen began pulling through to the pick-up window, "what am I supposed to do now?"

He glanced up into the rearview mirror. "A girl does nothing now except eat her meal. A man will do the rest."

Minutes later when they reconnected with the highway, Arya with a cheeseburger wrapper crumpled in her lap and a full stomach, she asked, "Why do you talk in third person? We learned about that in class, you know. I just talk with 'I' or 'me' and stuff."

Jaqen laughed once but did not reply.

* * *

"Do not be alarmed, little one, but I do believe that blue car behind us has tailed this vehicle since we left the drive-thru."

Jaqen glanced into the driver's side mirror and ever so gently pressed down on the gas pedal further, gradually gaining speed along the highway. If anyone else were watching his white Cadillac, the change of speed would appear unnoticeable. He maneuvered around a semi-truck on his left to prepare an exit onto a smaller road. Sure enough, the dark BMW a few cars back set their blinker to the left.

"Ah, they certainly are following us," Jaqen confirmed. His voice sounded amused to Arya, though she couldn't understand why he wasn't worried.

"D'ya think they're the same guys who saw me leaving the warehouse?" She tried to act brave, she really did. But that familiar sense of anxiety began to settle in Arya's stomach, rattling around like pennies in Jon's tin Band-Aid box.

It wasn't as if she _meant _to eavesdrop on the conversation at the warehouse! How could she have possibly known that it was filled with such dangerous men? Nonetheless, she realized that if Jaqen hadn't scooped her up at the time he had, she probably would be bubbling in a big pot of Arya stew. Or something equally uncomfortable.

"Do not fret. I will soon lose them," her driver reassured.

Despite the comfort his accented words offered, Arya still found herself chewing on her lower lip as she always did when nervous. She strained against her seatbelt and looked out the window, nose squished against the glass, attempting to find their pursuer.

Suddenly, with a jerk of the steering wheel, Jaqen cut a quick right turn onto a back road. Arya bonked her forehead on the car window. But even through her disorientation, she still recognized the familiar sound of a gun being fired—that frightening cracking noise then the echo and static which shadows it.

"They're shooting at us!" Panic laced her voice. Before, she always acted brave and strong and independent and, yeah, a little stubborn too, but no one had ever fired a gun _straight at her_. Now, Arya leaned forward in her seat so she felt a bit more protected. A precaution. The first shot had missed Jaqen's car, but not a single thread in her mind doubted that the next bullet would meet its mark.

Jaqen pressed down further on the accelerator and began steering the car in back-and-forth motions. An icy mask of calmness covered his face as if men fired shots at his vehicle every Saturday, though inside, he mentally kicked himself for even allowing his Cadillac to be seen leaving the warehouse. Usually he would change cars if he suspected anyone noticed him. It wasn't the girl's fault, but he felt more distracted with her around.

"Unbuckle yourself and crouch between the two seats," Jaqen told his little passenger evenly.

She immediately obeyed. Arya wedged herself in the space between the backseat and the front, still ducking her head in dread. Now so close to the car floor in that curled up position, she could feel every bump from the uneven back road and every angry thrum of the engine. She couldn't see what was going on outside. She didn't want to see.

Another round of shots _pop_, _pop_, _popped_ into the air followed by a sickening crunch. She heard Jaqen mutter something under his breath—she assumed it to be a curse—in another language.

"Did a bullet hit our car?" Arya squeaked out, daring to raise her head up a bit so she could watch her driver's reaction.

Instead of responding, Jaqen said, "Girl, quickly, climb up to the front," in a torrent of syllables.

Fear is a cold whisper tracing needles down one's spine, and she had never experienced true fear before. Even when that icy Bolton man noticed her in the window of the warehouse, she wasn't really all that scared. Arya didn't understand then. Now she understood. If the men with guns caught her now, she knew death would slink along behind them like a disease clinging to everything full of life.

Arya didn't want to climb to the front of the car because she felt relatively secure between the seats, though she scampered up and over the central console to the passenger chair anyways.

"Hold the steering wheel. Now," Jaqen commanded.

Her eyes widened in questioning.

_Pop, pop, bang_.

She stretched over to take the steering wheel in her small hands, trying to focus on the road stretching before and not the gunshots nor the tire squeals. Everything was moving too fast for Arya. One moment Jaqen reached down to grab an unseen object on the floorboard, and the next he was leaning out of his window with a gun in hand. Wind whipped into the car through the open window.

"Jaqen, there's a turn up ahead!" Arya shouted desperately over the now rapid succession of firing bullets. "What do I do?!"

He ducked back inside of the car to reload his weapon, saying above the noise of the wind, "Simply turn." Jaqen once again leaned out of the window.

Whoever the gunman was in the blue BMW, Jaqen pitied their poor marksmanship. _The Red God takes what is his_, he thought to himself as he pressed the trigger. His bullet spiraled into the enemy vehicle, weaving a spider web of broken glass across the windshield, and hit its aim straight into the forehead of the opposing gunman—a fast and relatively painless death. Just as Jaqen was about to finish off the driver in the same fashion, the force of a sharp, sudden turn pulled him back into his seat.

"Sorry!" Arya tried to straighten out the steering wheel after clearing the right-turn, but driving with such short arms was more difficult than her mother ever made it seem.

"No matter," he responded. Then Jaqen reached out and fired a final bullet at the driver of the BMW's hea. Once both of Jaqen's pursuers were incapacitated, he took back the wheel from Arya and pulled off the road slowly, gun still in hand.

Once her shock wore down, adrenaline coursed through Arya's system in rivulets of newfound energy. "That. Was. AWESOME!" She punched the air in front of her as Jaqen put his Cadillac in park.

He tersely said, "A girl would be wise to remain in the car."

Before Arya could respond, he opened the driver-side door with his left hand and stepped onto the street. In his right hand Jaqen gripped the gun. The door slammed closed behind him, and Arya slunk down further into the seat, suddenly shivering again out of trepidation. Realization crept into the crevices of her being: Jaqen had just shot two men. And probably killed them both. Granted, they _were_ probably hired by Roose Bolton or someone equally as terrifying in order to silence Arya, but still. This was the first time she had actually been involved with… She could barely even think the word. _Murder_.

"It's all my fault," she kept whispering over and over. "I should've left that warehouse when I realized something bad was going on. I should've let Dad talk with those men around the table like he probably does every week."

Arya chewed on her bottom lip with a sudden surge of violent regret. She wanted to scream. Or cry. Or both. Instead she raised up her chin a bit and took in a great gulp of air. And for a while, Arya was able to avoid crying, but the fear resurfaced when Jaqen climbed back into the driver's seat, streaked with inky red slashes across the front of his shirt.


	3. Chapter Three

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**Chapter Three: Beginnings of a Bond**

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Of course when she was younger, Arya had fallen and scraped her knees across the sidewalk as all children do. Sometimes Bran would show her how to climb trees properly, and she would snag her palms on the bark (not so properly). A few scratches on her legs, red pearls bubbling up on her hands—that was all Arya knew; she had never witnessed so much blood like on the front of Jaqen's shirt.

Studying the man, her eyes widened as he stored his gun beneath the driver's seat. His quiet, methodical ways of moving, even when he completed a simple task like shutting the car door, appeared out of place to Arya. Did Jaqen not realize he was drenched in blood? He seemed calm. Arya couldn't comprehend it.

"Jaqen," she started, trying to avoid the tremor in her voice, "what happened? Are you bleeding?"

He looked over at her. "No. This is not my blood. Now please open the glove compartment in front of you, little one."

_Not his blood. Not his blood, _Arya thought while obeying his clipped command. He pointed to a dark green shirt folded up in the compartment, so she removed it and passed it to his waiting hand. _Not his blood… How? Oh! Unless one of those guys in the bad car hadn't died immediately. _She shuddered. _Had Jaqen gone to finish them off?_

Once Arya had handed him the spare clothing, he immediately unbuttoned his crimson-soaked shirt. "Too many mistakes," he mumbled under his breath. First, he had allowed enemy men to follow his vehicle. Second, when he went back to said enemies for any identification on their bodies, the driver was still alive (albeit barely) and managed to smear Jaqen with his bloody hands. The only good which sprouted from the situation was the fact that the almost-dead driver confirmed Jaqen's suspicions: Roose Bolton had sent men in hunt of little Arya. Bolton did not, however, know of the involvement of Jaqen quite yet. Good.

Just as he shook away his thoughts, he shrugged out of his loose button-up and folded it to dispose of later. Jaqen could suddenly feel Arya's eyes on him, most likely staring at the marking now revealed on his right arm, though he didn't mind. She wouldn't recognize the black and white symbol on his bare bicep, anyways.

Without turning to acknowledge her curious gaze, Jaqen said gently, "A girl should not ask questions."

Arya started. She had just opened her mouth to ask him how he bloodied his clothing and why he had a weird multiple-faced man marked on his arm, but she immediately clopped her mouth shut. Instead she answered, "Okay," as Jaqen slipped the spare shirt over his head.

"We will return to the highway and turn on 101, following that up until we reach Santa Rosa where we will stay tonight," he began. "I would prefer to continue driving until the morning, but the hour grows later and I need to make a few phone calls. I also need to change cars.

"You can choose the hotel where we shall sleep, little one. Nothing too fancy, I might add, though a two-bedroom is optimal."

In all honesty, Arya really hadn't been listening to anything Jaqen said. All she heard was something about hotels and Santa Rosa. When Jaqen started the car again, she snapped out of her daze and sat upright. "Oh, wait. I'm still in the front seat," Arya pointed out. Her mother _never_ allowed her to ride in the passenger's chair, so Arya always ended up squished between Bran and Sansa in the back (both of whom grew quite annoying on long car trips).

Jaqen apparently held his own set of rules, however. "A man finds no issue with a girl remaining in the front. It is dark now; no one will recognize you through the windows."

Arya inwardly cheered as she buckled her seatbelt. "Sweet, I never get to ride shotgun," she beamed up at him.

They continued to drive for awhile on that same back road until Jaqen pulled out onto a bustling street corner. Arya didn't know what city they were in now (she never paid attention when her father drove around) though she hardly cared because she was away from those two dead bodies. The memory of the car chase could almost remove itself from her memory if she concentrated hard enough.

The sky seemed especially beautiful to her, now fading from Arya's favorite color of orange (like a candied bowl of tangerines) to watercolor charcoal. She watched through the window in a newfound fascination. Arya had never thought about death all that much before she overheard that conversation at the warehouse, but she realized then just how easily a person's life could shatter. So fragile and fleeting just like the sunset. After all, those two men Jaqen had shot were probably professionals trained with guns and cars and violence, and yet they died anyways. She wondered if they had families but scrunched up her nose at that thought.

"Just don't think about it," Arya whispered, not realizing she had spoken aloud.

"What was that?"

She turned her head from looking out the window to over at Jaqen. He glanced at her with interest before he refocused on the street.

"Nothing," she said. "Oh, hey?" Arya didn't wait for a response. "You never told me why you call yourself 'a man' sometimes instead of just saying 'I.' Or why you have a funny voice."

Jaqen smirked, his way of showing amusement without chuckling. "For your first inquiry, it shows humility."

"I don't think it's humiliating, I promise."

"No, _humility_, little one. Synonymous with acting humble."

"Synonymous?"

"Yes, tantamount. The same as. Et cetera."

"O-oh. I think I get it." Arya said. Then she sucked in her bottom lip for a moment before asking, "But if you're so humble, why do you drive a Cadillac? My dad has one. It's expensive."

"This vehicle was a gift," he answered, slowing at a stoplight. Red light from above filtered through the windshield, painting the interior of the car a dark crimson.

Jaqen continued, "And to your second inquiry, I do not have, what you call, a 'funny voice.' A man is not from the same country as a girl. Therefore a man speaks with an accent."

"That scary guy from the warehouse—"

"Roose Bolton."

She nodded. "—he talked with an accent." Then, before she could stop herself, the memories began washing over her, drowning her, like when Robb accidentally pushed her into the pool before she could swim. Arya needed to finally let it all out, so she started talking as she stared up at the traffic light.

It turned green.

"I wondered where my dad went to on most nights. He left some mornings, too. So early this morning when he came into my room to kiss me, I asked him where he was going. He said he was going to work. My dad's always been a bad liar, so I knew he wasn't telling the whole truth. I just pretended to go back to sleep when he shut my door, but I was really thinking of a plan as I laid there. Once I had one, I threw on some clothes, snuck downstairs, grabbed the extra set of keys to my dad's car, and hid in his trunk before he even walked in the garage.

"I thought it was a pretty good plan: Once my dad got to wherever he was going, I'd wait a while then unlock the trunk with the extra car keys. Then, if I got out and my dad really _had _driven his way to work, I'd make up some story about how I missed him when he left and wanted to go to work with him every day. That's actually kinda true, though.

"Anyways, if I unlocked the trunk and found out that he wasn't at Stark Industries, my plan was to sneak around until I found out what he was doin'."

Jaqen added, "Which you did."

"Yup," Arya said. "I waited for a while, I dunno how long it was, and then got out of the car. No one was around. It didn't look like I was at his office building. I was in a parking lot in between these two big factories, but they looked pretty rundown like no one used them anymore. It was kinda creepy, honestly. I wasn't scared, though, because it was still early in the morning and I felt brave." She sighed softly and closed her eyes.

"A girl _is _brave. A sweet girl," she heard Jaqen say.

"Not anymore. I didn't know what it was like to be actually scared by something until those guys started shooting at us earlier."

Arya opened her eyes when the car slowed at another light. Jaqen was watching her with a certain expression in his blue-grey depths, and although she didn't understand it, she just knew her father sometimes looked at her the same way.

When Jaqen finally spoke, his voice was softer than normal. "You have no need to finish your tale now, little one. A man understands. You may tell me the ending at a later time, and that time is not now. Now, a girl should rest."

"I'm not tired."

"No, I see it in your face. A man is very talented with reading faces. You're stifling a yawn now, yes?"

With a reluctant nod, Arya curled up in the seat. "Yeah, I guess so."

The car lurched forward, and Jaqen did not say another word, allowing the little girl beside him to close her eyes. He would reach Santa Rosa, find a room, contact his employer, switch cars…

Jaqen found his gaze wandering back to Arya's form. She had slumped down in the leather seat so her head could rest against the padded car door, her legs tucked to the side. Soon he heard her breathing even out and deepen despite the troublesome events of the day.

He wondered if she dreamed.

* * *

**Who caught on to the fact that the business of Eddard Stark, Arya's father, has the same namesake as the business of Tony Stark, Iron Man? xD Hehe Sorry, I couldn't help myself.**

**So… not much action in this chapter, just a lot of exposition. But at least you know a bit more about the characters and what happened to Arya! Plus, a curveball is about to hit our littlest protagonist right in the face (figuratively speaking, of course) during these next few chapters. **

**Questions? Comments? Concerns? Why is Eddard Stark in some shady business? What's going on with Roose Bolton? Who is this employer of Jaqen's? Mwhaha Of course, I know the answers. But you don't. **

**Check back this Sunday for more _Faceless_!**

**-Apprentice**


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